


like something small and alive

by cassandralied



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Canon Typical Terrible Backstories, F/M, Hughie and Butcher rly just want to fuck in peace, Kimiko and Frenchie save the world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26450746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied
Summary: The first thing he learns about the girl, before anything else, is that she's a walking tragedy.--Frenchie is assigned to his first Jaeger. His drift partner is sort of terrifying, but in a fun way.
Relationships: The Female | Kimiko/The Frenchman, billy butcher/hughie campbell (background)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53





	like something small and alive

i.

The first thing he learns about the girl, before her name or anything else, is that she’s a walking tragedy.   
“Parents killed in a kaiju attack,” M.M. confirms at lunch. “Hasn’t spoken a word since. That’s what they say, anyway.”  
“Poor thing,” Annie says, Annie January of the bleeding heart. She’s Hughie’s old drift partner before he retired, and really the only woman that hangs out with their crew, but she’s okay. Frenchie likes her, even if she wears her heart on every jumpsuit sleeve she’s ever owned.   
“We’ve all lost someone,” Hughie replies, his voice cool not from lack of emotion, but from the effort of suppressing it all. Butcher looks over at him, concerned. Frenchie knows that the younger man lost someone on the first Kaiju attack in the States, but only Butcher knows the specifics. He’s not a betting man (anymore) but he feels confident in his guess that Butcher’s hand is on Hughie’s thigh under the table.  
“Is it true that the Colonel adopted her?” Annie asks, one hand squeezing Hughie’s shoulder in a brief show of support. “The orphan girl, I mean.”  
M.M. nods.   
“The girl’s an urban legend, idiot,” Butcher retorts, swiping his flask back from Frenchie, who scowls halfheartedly. “Nobody’s seen her, nobody’s ever gonna see her. Besides, Mallory doesn’t have the heart to adopt some orphan she doesn’t know.”  
“The Colonel’s a complicated woman,” Frenchie argues, even though he isn’t sure why. From Butcher’s glance and M.M.’s raised eyebrow, he’s not the only one surprised by his own outburst. “I mean —”  
“Partner assignments are out,” calls Cherie, gliding by their table. Frenchie’s fellow transfer from the defunded French Jaeger program. Cherie’s a coder, not a fighter, but other than that she’s pretty alright company.   
“Merci, darling.” He stands, addresses the others. “Are you coming?”

  
Maeve from the UK program is swearing loudly by the time Frenchie enters the room. He doesn’t pay much attention to gossip, but he’s pretty sure she’s pissed she’s not getting paired with her girlfriend, the cute one always slung under her arm.   
Butcher’s here, peering at the laminated assignment sheet even though Frenchie’s pretty sure his only job is to rig malfunctioning Jaegers and bother Hughie in the programming room.  
“Who’s ‘The Female’?” Hughie asks, and Frenchie catches a glimpse of a woman with dark hair and darker eyes dressed in a too-big yellow hoodie, but she's gone before he can share this revelation with the others.

ii.  
“Frenchie, this is Codename Female. Female, your drift partner.” Mallory’s tone is clinical, but Frenchie can see the concern in her eyes. It looks like the rumor about the Colonel adopting a little orphan girl was true.  
He hadn’t expected her to move that fast, to kick his ass in that match so thoroughly, but he knew he wanted her as a drift partner as soon as she had him flat on his back within seconds. Or maybe it was right after that, when he said, “I thought I’d be the one sweeping you off your feet, mon coeur,” and the corner of her mouth tugged up in an imperceptible smile as she offered a hand to help him up.

“She doesn’t have a name,” Mallory clarifies, and the female almost looks hurt by that.   
“You mean, you don’t know her name,” Frenchie feels compelled to say, to defend her (as if she needs it.)  
Mallory’s lips thin. “Why don’t you strap into the Jaeger, Frenchie.”

The Jaeger is ostentatious, shiny and new with bumblebee stripes on its yellow-coat painting and the name Bone Chance painted and chosen by someone who clearly spoke very little French.  
“Initiating neural drift sequence,” Hughie says from LOCCENT, and Frenchie wonders how he managed to smuggle Butcher in there, because that is unmistakeably their friend crouching under Hughie’s desk and unbuttoning the programmer’s Gap jeans.

Then there is no time to wonder, as he’s plunged into the chlorine blue expanse of their shared mindspace.  
Frenchie fe _els the cigarette burns on his skin all over again, he’s scrawny and skinny and determined to get into flight school, he’s sweaty and strung out and orgasming in an unknown bed in Kenya on the eve of the first ever Kaiju attack. He’s taking Butcher’s hand and yanking himself out of a pill induced haze. He’s introducing Butcher to Hughie and hating the way his friend’s eyes light up like the skinny programmer is a lagging gazelle. He’s kissing Cherie, impulsive, careless, “come back to the army, baby, we’ll fight them together”, he’s meeting Mother’s Milk, he’s getting in fights, they’re getting in fights just as often as they’re breaking them up and_  
he’s gasping because these aren’t his memories anymore  
 _she just wants to speak why can’t she speak why can’t they understand her claws rending and tearing, teeth chewing through her mother, the screams, the gore, Kenji grabbing her hand and running, she’s supposed to be the BIG SISTER she’s supposed to PROTECT HIM and here she is helpless a nd_  
 _they’re developing their own sign language with such patience, such care. she makes a joke and Kenji laughs, and she squeezes him tightly and never wants to let him g_  
 _o_  
 _but he does go, because the ShiningLightLiberationArmy takes him away for something top secret and she never sees him again and_  
 _they try to do the same to her_  
 _the tying down and the needles_  
 _and she thinks she’s going to die she IS going to die writhing on a table trapped and alone and nobody will ever know what happened to Kenji but_  
 _they leave the ties too loose one day and she runs_  
 _and she’s just a girl and they’re men with guns but_  
 _but she’s not just a girl_  
 _because they pumped her full of that chemical shit and now she’s faster and stronger_  
 _she’s twisting guns with her bare hands and_  
 _she’s ripping off their faces and blood tastes so sweet on her tongue and_  
 _is this what a kaiju feels like beautiful and destructive and she can’t get enough of it_  
 _she sees her reflection in a surgery shiny table and she has to run again because there’s a monster in the mirror and it’s living in her bones and_

they’re gasping in unison, and now her eyes are flicking over to him, big and scared, and he knows that she’s scared because nobody else knows any of this. _i’ve killed people,_ she says in his mind, so clear, and he sends her a memory of the woman in the elevator, of himself running guns, of incredible violence until her heart slows. _so have i._  
Out loud, he says, “ _Bonjour,_ Kimiko.”

Kimiko smiles.


End file.
